Birth Control, Sex, and Marriage in Britain 1918-1960

Kate Fisher

Awarded the Proxime Accessit for the Longman-History Today Book of the Year Prize 2007

Challenges widely accepted views on changing contraceptive practices during the twentieth century

First book to focus on the role of men in the decline of family size

Birth Control, Sex, and Marriage in Britain 1918-1960

Kate Fisher

Description

The first half of the twentieth century witnessed a revolution in contraceptive behaviour as the large Victorian family disappeared. This book offers a new perspective on the gender relations, sexual attitudes, and contraceptive practices that accompanied the emergence of the smaller family in modern Britain. Kate Fisher draws on a range of first-hand evidence, including over 190 oral history interviews, in which individuals born between 1900 and 1930 described their marriages and sexual relationships. By using individual testimony she challenges many of the key conditions that have long been envisaged by demographic and historical scholars as necessary for any significant reduction in average family size to take place.

Dr Fisher demonstrates that a massive expansion in birth control took place in a society in which sexual ignorance was widespread; that effective family limitation was achieved without the mass adoption of new contraceptive technologies; that traditional methods, such as withdrawal, absitinence, and abortion were often seen as preferable to modern appliances, such as condoms and caps; that communication between spouses was not key to the systematic adoption of contraception; and, above all, that women were not necessarily the driving force behind the attempt to avoid pregnancy. Women frequently avoided involvement in family planning decisions and practices, whereas the vast majority of men in Britain from the interwar period onward viewed the regular use of birth control as a masculine duty and obligation. By allowing this generation to speak for themselves, Kate Fisher produces a richer understanding of the often startling social atttitudes and complex conjugal dynamics that lay behind the vast changes in contraceptive behavior and family size in the twentieth century.

Birth Control, Sex, and Marriage in Britain 1918-1960

Kate Fisher

Table of Contents

Introduction1. The Maintenance of Ignorance2. Deliberate Accidents and Casual Attempts to Avoid Pregnancy3. The Survival of Traditional Methods of Birth Control4. The Advantages of Traditional Methods of Birth Control5. Gender Relations and Birth Control PracticesConclusionEpilogueAppendixBibliographyIndex

Birth Control, Sex, and Marriage in Britain 1918-1960

Kate Fisher

Reviews and Awards

"Fisher's work has brought fresh insight into the ways in which women and men connected sex to children."--Ellen Ross, American Historical Review

"Well-written.... Fisher's methodology is interesting and also convincing."--Lesley Hoggart, Journal of Modern History

"Fisher's revision of the history of birth control sheds new light on the production of male identity.... One hopes that other scholars will follow Fisher's example in using oral history to figure out the individual dimensions of this major social transition."--Elizabeth Siegel Watkins, Social History of Medicine

"This is a brave and ambitious book which breaks new ground."--History Today

"A mature piece of work which cuts no corners and includes a wide range of sources, including the Mass Observation archive and oral history."--Longman-History Today Book Awards 2007